Better Data | Better Decisions – June 2019

Details

Part of series

This comprehensive online course is for people who want to work strategically with data, but don’t need or want to learn complex programming.

You will learn how to create value from data for your organisation, whilst avoiding harmful impacts. You will learn how better decisions can be made with data. You will develop both strategic and practical skills.

Do you want to solve problems with data?

This interactive online course is for people who want to work strategically with data, but don’t need or want to learn complex programming. Wherever you are in the world, and whenever you want to learn, it’s your chance to work with ODI experts, using real-world data, to solve complex problems.

It’s a really good course, really well-designed … I can’t really fault it. The people running it are very good, very passionate. For an online course it was very interactive

CRM Analyst, British Gas

Over the course of six weeks, through online learning, interactive webinars and expert reviewed assignments, you will learn how to create value from data for your organisation, while avoiding harmful impacts. You will learn how better decisions can be made with data. You will develop both strategic and practical skills.

What do you get from the course?

The course will equip you with the theoretical knowledge, practical skills and technical know-how to make good decisions using data. The course emphasises a hands-on approach to learning data skills, offering a number of interactive, online exercises that will let you try out many of the techniques and concepts covered in the taught material against real examples.

The course gives you the flexibility to plan your learning schedule. Aside from webinars (which are recorded), you can plan your own timetable for learning and assignments. In total, you can expect to commit up to five hours each week towards the required learning activities, guided by your tutors.

Got a question?

Talk with one of our data skills experts who can answer your questions and discuss the course. Choose a time that suits you.

What have past participants said?

“The assignments were the highlight of the course. They were well designed – it’s good to use real live data from a different sphere than I’m used to working in. And I really liked how they built on the previous assignment learnings.”

Digital Analyst, Boots

“What was useful was bringing order and methodology. We haven’t necessarily gone about it in that process – before we’ve gone a bit more back and forth. This applied some logic to it, which was beneficial.”

Senior Manager, Ernst & Young

“The course would be good for people who have done basic or routine data analysis, who want to break out of that box. I know a lot of people who do management reports, and they’re stuck doing that monthly and that’s boring as hell. For them to learn to question what they’ve been told, how they can present that better and the stories they can tell from that data, is one of the biggest gains.”

Data Engagement Lead, DEFRA

Taking place online, over six weeks, each week will contain a mix of taught material, self-study, activities and practical exercises all carried out online.

Week 1: Discovering open data

What is open data and what impact can it have? We will assess successful case studies of open data projects and look at how risk can be minimised through licensing and certificates.

Topics:

What is open data?

Unlocking value from open data

Open data and open standards

Understanding your rights to use data

The data spectrum

Copyright, licensing and open data

Week 2: Health check – cleaning hospital data

You will begin your hands-on experience of data management with the first assignment, based upon a real case study of hospital performance data in Tanzania. This week focuses on how 80% of your time can be saved if data is collected, organised and cleaned in a consistent fashion.

Topics:

The four-step process of data science/journalism

Organising data

Cleaning data

Choosing & designing schemas

Annotating and describing data

Open data and open standards

Data formats and structures

Week 3: How can we improve the performance of the London Fire Brigade? (Part 1)

In this week the major case study of the course is introduced. You will begin looking at a large piece of data analysis using real incident records from the London Fire Brigade, to review the decision to close several stations. This week looks at the data processing and analysis that can help reveal the impact.

Topics:

Gathering data from a number of different sources

Evaluate the quality and usability of data

Establishing trust in data

Filtering & pivot tables

Introduction to quantitative data analysis

Introduction to qualitative data analysis

Week 4: How can we improve the performance of the London Fire Brigade? (Part two)

Week 4 takes the result of the analysis and challenges you addressed in week 3, to tell a compelling story from data, that includes at least one visualisation. This week introduces the theory of data visualisation and how to create a compelling story where the message pops off your screen/page.

Topics:

Data visualization formats

Data visualisation best practice

Mapping open data

Narrating your story

Practical data visualisation

Visual deception

Week 5: Open data futures

Week 5 looks at the future of open data. We look at how data standards and open APIs enable services to talk intelligently to each other and how these are already in widespread use with cloud services and big data. We discover how Transport for London has used open data and the cloud to deliver £130m of economic benefit a year and look at how an industry has grown around this open data. In a rapidly changing data landscape, we examine the role of open data in business evolution. By creating a personalised travel planner, you will explore the area of business development from a management perspective whilst also considering the potential implications of data futures.

Topics:

APIs and open data

Working with live data

Recognising and working with big data

Week 6: Open data and business development

We look at the future of open data in your discipline and how to overcome the cultural and management challenges in making more of data in your organisations.

Topics:

Data myths

Ethical challenges

Open data: Threats and opportunities

Who is this for?

This course is for anyone working in organisations, who wants to make better decisions with data, or who is leading, or commissioning, data analysis and data-informed decision-making work.

Course prerequisites

No previous experience of data or programming is required. However, a good level of computer literacy is necessary. In particular, you need to be comfortable using spreadsheets programmes, such as Excel.

Course requirements

You’ll need to an internet-enabled laptop or PC with Google Chrome installed. And you’ll ideally need to able to install new software.

About ODI courses

Co-founded by the inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, the ODI offers courses that are friendly, supportive and fun. No question is a silly question in our classrooms, and our expert teachers will arm you with all the practical skills you need for applying what you’ve learnt to the real world.

All slides and exercises are made available for anyone to access, use and share under an open licence.